Make sure your saddle fits (Part 4) An indispensable guide to finding a saddle that fits your horse prepared by horse, rider and saddle fitting expert, Ken Lyndon Dykes. 7 vital checks For a qualified saddle fitter to consider that a saddle fits a horse, it has to pass all of these vital seven saddle fitting checks if it fails one, it doesn't fit! 1. Looking from the front, the angle of the tree should be the same as the angle of the shoulder. "We'd take a ten degree variance but no more" says Ken. NB Make sure you're checking the angle of the tree, where Ken's finger is pointing in the photo on the right, not the leather facing.     2. Without a rider on, or the saddle being girthed up, you should be able to get your hand under the whole length of the flap, from the top to the bottom, at the front just behind the shoulder, easily and evenly. 3. The side of the panel must not engage the spine here at the front i.e. the tree and gullet must be wide enough. In the left photo, Ken shows what happens if the gullet is too narrow & pinches the spine. Far right, he shows how a wider gullet gives the spine room to move.    4. There has to be sufficient clearance at the front of the saddle but most important, it must still be clear here under load. "This is the Boy Scout test that everybody gets wrong!" says Ken. "Counting how many fingers you can get under the front of the saddle between the pommel and the spine is rubbish. What matters is that there has to be sufficient clearance under load it can be one and a half fingers, it can be three and a half fingers, so long as it is genuinely clear   under load. With a close contact saddle it may be as little as one finger that's why they're called close contact saddles, to get you close!" 5. Check that the saddle sits level on the horse's back. As Ken says, "You don't look at the clearance at the pommel in isolation the front and back of the saddle should sit level so the rider sits in the centre and the weight is evenly distributed all along the saddle." Look at the lowest part of the saddle's seat, is it central? If not, you will be tipped backwards or forwards.   6. The back of the panel must not go beyond the 18th rib, the last rib. You want the horse to carry the weight above his ribs, not the soft tissues behind them.   7. The panel should sit lightly and evenly all the way along the horse's back, so that it bears the rider's weight evenly. Run your hand underneath the panels back to front to check this.       Next instalment: Examining the saddle under the rider Part 1  Part 2  Part 3